Using a handheld CB radio in a vehicle is useless unless connected to an external aerial as you would connect a standard CB. The Midland 42 comes with a convenient slide-on attachment to do this - it fixes in place of the battery compartment and gives you aerial and 12v connections. You don't have to remove the units' own aerial so if you need to step outside and take the unit with you - simply slide off the battery illiminator and slide on the battery pack.This can be a good option if you will only use the CB occasionally and do not want a permanent install, or you are going overland to Morocco or similar where you need to be able to hide the CB away.

The disadvantage of using a handheld within a vehicle is that while the battery illiminator makes the unit smaller - it's still a pretty large item to be holding up to your mouth to talk into and to your ear to listen to. You can plug a standard extension speaker into the top which can help with listening (the units own speaker is small and can be hard to hear in a noisy vehicle), or a speaker microphone which is a hand microphone that also has a speaker inside it. There are various speaker mics available - if you think that this handheld CB in-vehicle system is the right one for you, and there's the possibility that it's going to get some rough use, you should consider our Heavy Duty Speaker Mic - it's not cheap, but it's very good.

Our Opinion : The Midland 42 is a proven set, we have sold many hundreds of these over the years with very very few problems. All handheld CB's are big compared to modern mobile phones but the Midland 42 is the smallest, made even smaller when used with the battery illiminator which slides on in place of the battery pack.